Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

This was fantastic when I was reading month by month, so much so that I was slightly worried that a reread of this all together wouldn't quite hold up or that there wouldn't be that much more to mine from this series.   I shouldn't have been worried, though, because what I seem to forget with comics is that reading them all at once only adds to the experience: you see things that you missed, sometimes because you've forgotten what came in the months before.  Reading it all together, it's harder to miss those connections. 

Or in other words, I've gotten so much from this I've planned one reread with someone else and demanded another - it was a gentle demand from someone who already wants to read this, if that helps - and I really want someone to go through the whole series with me in a month or so when the final issue is out.   

I'm more than eager to continue reading about Viv in The Champions.   

This particular volume is interesting because it starts and ends with the same threat: that of Vision himself burning down the world.   And while the Avengers occasionally show up in this series, mostly with Vision talking about them, although at one point he's shown fighting with them and talking to Virginia, no one else reciprocates.   That is, none of the other series, including the Avengers team V is on talk about his family.   Is this the hesitancy that their neighbors spoke about?   Do the Avengers keep them out of sight and out of mind?   Or is there a more banal explanation, that the writers didn't want to step on King's toes or his series?   Were they told not to or did everyone else make that decision on their own?  The latter would be interesting as King has become a darling of the comics community with the praise this series gets, and I wonder if they're simply worried their Visions won't hold up to King's.   (And Tom King, guys, not Stephen.   One King is my favorite, the other... isn't.   It's Tom.   I adore Tom King.)

In that case, I'm also wondering if the The Champions writer is sweating a bit, although he's also being handed Miles Morales, Nova, and Kamala Khan.   That being said, those are some hot properties thrown together, and while I'm less excited about teen-Cyclops and new-teen-Hulk, I'm in it for the others, particularly Viv.   I'm going to sit on this review until probably tomorrow.   I want to think this through and write a thoughtful review.   Not something that goes off in tangents like I have here, or just be like 'oooh, abs!'   They showed his abs when his wife seduced him and he got all stutter-y which was ... yeah, the hottest scene in this whole series so far.   

I think I'm gonna end with abs here since I can.   Yay!